The point wasn't that Apple got most of the carrier fees let alone nearly all of them but that is what their €1000 price tag suggested. The fact that Apple didn't charge near that figure for any unlocked phone afterwards for a very long time makes my point very easy to see. If you want to see, that is.
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Apple Sued by U.S. Department of Justice, Says Lawsuit is 'Wrong'
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Integration and "handicapping" always were but two sides of the same coin, IMO. If I make an integrated product by giving it features reserved only for myself, then every other manufacturer is by definition disadvantaged because they don't have access to the those same features and functionality.
My contention is that Apple users like myself buy iPhones and its accompanying accessories first and foremost because we want to use iOS. It strikes me as pure hypocrisy to blame Apple for adopting a business model which many people were certain would not succeed a decade ago. Admit it - you all were so convinced that Apple would fade away into irrelevancy precisely because they were trying to sell an integrated product in a modularised market. And now, instead of accepting that you were wrong all along, you are now trying to rewrite history by insisting that customers are being held captive for well over a decade by Apple's evil scheming to lock us in, and that we somehow need to be saved from ourselves. It ignores consumer choice and it ignores the genuine innovation Apple has taken to create and continuously update the iPhone for 17 years, as well as build a formidable ecosystem around it without fail.
Which then raises the question - what makes Apple obligated to share access to their proprietary platform with competitors? I owned a pebble watch long before the Apple Watch was a thing, and it never had the ability to respond directly to messages or otherwise interact with notifications. Then the Apple Watch comes along, allowing iPhone users to do so.
Is Apple hobbling the competition by not allowing them to do something that they were never allowed to do in the first place? It's not as though the pebble watch started out with the ability to reply to messages, and then Apple removed it in order to give their own smartwatch a leg up. They just never had access to it to begin with.
By definition, having an integrated platform means having a monopoly on iOS. It's the case whether there is only 1 iPhone in existence, or 1 billion iPhones, because nobody else can have system-level access to iOS the same way Apple does. It's a totally ridiculous way of approaching the whole matter!
Yes, yes BUT.
Even comparing today's inflation loaded $729 with €1000 then doesn't really work in Apple's favour. Bear in mind, the iPhone was just a rejigged iPad with a smaller screen, battery and a baseband and it starts to look even fishier. The iPad launched at $499 in the US. Being generous and throwing in a couple of hundred dollars for the sim capabilities and extra regulatory hurdles to overcome and it still comes up somewhat short.
Apple decided to fine the petitioner in Germany as a punishment for questioning its shady sales practices. Nothing more, nothing less.
Since we are likely over a year away from even the start of any potential trial, everything being discussed here are obviously just allegations right now. My point was simply that this and other allegations could turn out to be much more than just a "I don't like what Apple is doing" situation. If the claim that Apple intentionally hampers the functionality of third party smartwatches when paired with iPhones is true (and no one here can say for sure it is or isn't at this point), it very well could be ruled as anticompetitive behavior and an antitrust violation. Time will tell how this and other things play out including full or partial settlements, dismissals, etc. I am leaning more towards the settlements path.
I simply don't see this as a "fine" as the practice was common, at least in the U.S., prior to when the iPhone launched and is still done in similar ways today. Customers decide if they want to go with the carrier "discounted" phone on a long-term contract or pay "full price" without a contract. The price difference (which could be hundreds of dollars) between the two is largely determined by how much a carrier is willing to pay/discount in order to lock a customer in long-term, and usually on a high(er) priced plan.
The maths don't stack up and this doesn't fly in Europe. It was dumb insolence on Apple's part and nobody but nobody was impressed with it at the time.
I am, however, aware of how convoluted the process is in the US and how choice of carrier is limited by geography. The number of threads referencing "grandfathering" to this or that ancient contract in order not to have to pay newer and higher tariffs were legion here. Something that made zero sense to non-USians.
For example, my current contract is unlimited minutes/texts (hardly ever used) and 10GB of data since free public wifi is everywhere these days and I never come close to my allowance limits. It costs me £5 per month and my provider gives me weekly freebies - food or coffee, meaning that my contract is actually paying me to stay.
I'm not sure why you think things "don't stack up" but what is available today as far as iPhone carrier plans and pricing can be very different than how things were nearly 17 years ago. Using the UK as an example, the exclusive iPhone carrier at time of launch was O2 which offered an 8GB iPhone for £269 (including VAT) and required a minimum 18-month contract starting at £35/month (200 minutes, 200 texts, and unlimited data).
Based on November 2007 exchange rate, that would put pre-VAT pricing for the 8GB iPhone at around $469 USD and plan pricing starting at around $61 USD/month. By comparison in the U.S., the 8GB iPhone was selling for $399 (following its $200 price cut) and AT&T plans started at $59.99/month. All of these prices before adjusting for inflation.
Ah, yes. The pre 2007 iPad. You just keep making stuff up because you want to see your point so badly.
The answer to your question is yes Apple is hobbling the competition by not allowing it. If the iWatch could not respond to the message it would be a non issue. It is the fact that the iWatch's integration and what it is allowed to do far exceeds what any thing else would be allowed to do. If Apple played by the same API access rules as everyone else on their device Apple advatage would be they have better internal support for apis and more they would know what is coming ahead of time and can update a little faster before it is published.
The same goes for things like airtags vs tile. Airtags have by far more power than tile ever could with the app hobble by Apples rules that airtags are not. Yes in theory someone else could make something that ties into the airtag network but they would be blocked form getting everything tile currently gets.
At a certain point those tighter integration a company has crosses a line and they are to tightly put tied together and you have anti trust issue and it starts really hamstringing competition. This is a case Apple cross the line and honestly crossed the line a while ago. Anti trust enforcement in the country has long been over due on a lot more companies than just Apple. I think it should of started being looked at in the early 2000's to prevent it from getting to this point.
Remember there was a reason IBM stayed out of software and it was purely they knew back then if they got to heavy involved in that they anti trust hammer would come down on the hard.
The thing about US antitrust law is that you still have to prove harm to consumers, and that is where I feel the DOJ will have their work cut out for them. At best, an argument can be made that developers are the ones being harmed, but IIRC, a prior lawsuit has already ruled that developers are not eligible to sue Apple in the US because Apple deals with customers, not with them. And it's hard to make a case that consumers are being actively harmed by the superior user experience that the Apple ecosystem affords.
I guess I still don't see it as being anti-competitive. Yes, Apple is giving themselves an advantage over everyone else by reserving certain features only for their products, and that's kinda their whole selling point. Companies like Tile won't be happy, but I feel there's a difference between "unfair" and "not to my advantage". Likewise, maybe I buy AirTags because I trust that they come from Apple and maybe I don't trust third parties having the same access to my find my network?
And remember - everyone was convinced that Apple's closed ecosystem approach wouldn't work, and Apple proved the haters all wrong, and we are talking about regulating a company with only 20% market share worldwide.
I doubt a lawsuit in the early 2000s would have yielded any results. It's telling that the EU had to go through all that trouble of crafting new laws in order to reign Apple in (implying that Apple had not broken any of the original laws), and unless the US can get its act together to do the same, I am cautiously optimistic that it won't yield any results today either.
Remember - just because many of you here don't like how Apple runs their business doesn't mean they are necessarily breaking any laws.
The proving harm to consumers is going to be simple fact that there is less choice in things like iWatches and tile trackers as Apple is squeezing them out the competition with their drawbacks.
They are hurting consumers by driving up prices as everyone effectly has to pay the Apple tax so extra cost there.
Lack of even apple feeling like they need to make their product better because they can just hard force any one else out.
They only have to prove that smart watches are being hurt as Apple can not use the iPhone as the counter argument. Only APple watches work fully with the iOS device. Remember Apple is part of a duoploy rules are different in behavior.
Some of the harm to consumers comes from things like restricting competition/choice, increasing switching costs, etc.
According to the DOJ, we're talking about regulating a company with over 65% smartphone market share and over 70% "performance smartphone" market share in the U.S. and that is the relevant market here as any outcome as far as settlements, court rulings, etc. would only have to apply to the U.S. market.
Of course that has to be proven. It’s easy to say in an anonymous forum.
Still and all epic lost the suit so the doj may have their work cut out for them.
It will be an ongoing thing like the JFK case and the Nord Stream pipeline investigation.
You do know that the iPhone came first right ? The iPad was an an iPhone with a larger screen and was released nearly three years after the iPhone. The iPhone was an iPod with a larger screen.
The DOJ allegations are broader and arguably more consumer oriented than what was involved in the Epic case.
Sorry, can you clarify exactly when IBM stayed out of software? I think I must have missed that period.
or perhaps people just like what Apple offer and buy the products...
you cant legislate purchase decisions.
many people who buy their first Apple product keep adding to their collection because they like the look and feel and interface. and reduced virus issues.
Lotus Software: Diversification and acquisition by IBM
In the 1990s, to compete with Microsoft's Windows applications, Lotus had to buy in products such as Ami Pro (word processor),[14][15] Approach (database), and Threadz, which became Lotus Organizer. Several applications (1-2-3, Freelance Graphics, Ami Pro, Approach, and Lotus Organizer) were bundled together under the name Lotus SmartSuite. Although SmartSuite was bundled cheaply with many PCs and may initially have been more popular than Microsoft Office, Lotus quickly lost its dominance in the desktop applications market with the transition from 16- to 32-bit applications running on Windows 95. In large part due to its focusing much of its development resources on a suite of applications for IBM's new (and eventually commercially unsuccessful) OS/2 operating system, Lotus was late in delivering its suite of 32-bit products and failed to capitalize on the transition to the new version of Windows. The last significant new release was the SmartSuite Millennium Edition, released in 1999.[16][17]
I wanted to make sure that people finally understood that the fight for power is much more serious than they think and where "sideloading" and "consumer rights" are only useful instruments and not the end goal.
Power. Giant digital corporations are obviously cutting into it. Remember there was a news article on MR where Tim Cook was saying that he was interested and looking into cryptocurrencies. You know the little things...